Chapter CXXII: Section CCLX: Colonist Emigration

All these dangers disappear when the portion of the nation which has emigrated continues economically connected with the body of the nation remaining at home. (Colonizing emigration.) Here emigration not only provides "elbow room" in the mother country, but there arises at the same time an increased demand for manufactured articles, an increased supply of raw material, by means of which an absolute growth of population is made possible.[260-1] England has hitherto enjoyed these advantages to the fullest extent, Germany scarcely at all. German emigrants to Russia, America, Australia, or Algiers, were, together with all they have and are, for the most part lost to their fatherland. They become the customers and suppliers of foreign countries, and frequently enough the competitors and even enemies of Germany.[260-2] [260-3]

It might be very different if the stream of German emigration was directed towards German colonies for instance, as happened in later medieval times, towards the fertile but thinly populated parts of Hungary, towards the provinces of Austria and Prussia; perhaps, as List wished, towards those parts of Turkey which, God willing, shall yet constitute the inheritance of the German people. Thus, through the instrumentality of emigration, might a new Germany arise, which would directly or indirectly and necessarily ally itself to the old, politically, and at the same time constitute the surest bulwark against the danger from Slavic power.

Politico-economically, this country might be utilized by Germany as the United States uses the Mississippi valley and the Far West, especially as concerns the exclusiveness of the use. It is true, that emigrants could be invited to these quarters in good conscience only when the soil had been prepared for them. They should find there, on their arrival, complete legal security, especially for the landed property to be acquired by them; likewise, at least, full personal, religious, and also commercial freedom.[260-4]

It may be asked, whether there are places in the other quarters of the world adapted to German colonization in the higher sense of the word. These should of course be countries adapted to agriculture as practiced by the Germans,[260-5] with an easily accessible coast and provided in the interior with navigable streams. Here the Germans should be able not only to live together in large numbers, but the rest of the population should be inferior to them in political training and in national feeling. Otherwise, there would in time be danger of their losing the German character and feeling.[260-6] The difficulty of establishing German colonies in the southern temperate parts of Chili and Brazil would be aggravated by the very same causes which prevented the creation of a German navy for centuries; and they would almost certainly have to calculate on the jealousy of all other colonial powers and of the United States.[260-7] We should not forget that from Raleigh's time to the present, almost every speculation having for its object the founding of a colony, whether originating with individual capitalists or with joint-stock companies, has been, considered from a mercantile point of view, a failure. The fruits of new colonization are generally reaped in the succeeding generation; and such delay is scarcely in harmony with the ideas of our own times. Almost every settlement has had its critical period when the settlers almost despaired. This produced less harm in the 17th century; for they were for the most part compelled to persevere. In our day, they would probably disband and go in search of an easier life in colonies already existing. And yet, Germany must make haste if it would not soon see the last appropriate locality occupied by other and more resolute nations.[260-8] [260-9]

[Footnote 260-1: As _Torrens_ shows there is no kind of
trade that so much promotes production, or which is so
capable of growth as the exchange of the means of
subsistence and raw materials against manufactured articles.
The Budget: On Commercial and Colonial Policy, 1841 ff.]

[Footnote 260-2: Care should be taken not to allow one's
self to be misled here by relative numbers. In the United
States, the amount of imports was, from--

===========================================================
|_The British_| _France._ | _Germany without_
| _Empire._ | | _Austria._
------------+-------------+-------------+------------------
1840-41, | $51,000,000 | $24,000,000 | $2,450,000
1849-50, | 85,000,000 | 27,600,000 | 8,780,000
1859-60, | 138,600,000 | 43,200,000 | 18,500,000
===========================================================

Hence, absolutely, the German exports increased in 19 years
only about $16,000,000; the French (without any emigration),
over $19,000,000; the English, more than five times the
German. Of the 30,633 emigrants who sailed from Bremen in
1874, only 72 did not go to the United States. (D. Ausw.
Ztg., 5 Jul., 1875.) The total exports of the United Kingdom
to its colonies amounted, 1840-44, to an average value of
£7,833,000; 1865-69, to £27,146,000; while those to foreign
countries amounted, during the same periods of time, to only
from £28,871,000 to £93,558,000. English colonial trade
amounted, in 1866, to £6 2s. per capita of the colonial
population; the trade with the East Indies, to only 9s. 7d.
per capita of the East Indian population. (Statist. Journal,
1872, 123 ff.)]

[Footnote 260-3: There has hitherto been little to rejoice
over in the condition of German emigrants. The greater
number of them had received so little education that they
were by no means in a way to oppose the weapons of attack of
Anglo-Americans. The glorious literature of their old home
scarcely existed for them. Almost the only national
peculiarity which they held to with any tenacity was the
disposition to a want of union among themselves. Hence they
were necessarily de-Germanized in a few generations, after a
toilsome and quarrelsome period of transition. How seldom,
even in Ohio, did German names occur in the list of public
officials, while in New York the number of German names on
the poor list is very considerable. The situation, however,
seems to have improved in modern times, and the national
coherency and political power of the mother country have
gone hand in hand with the revival of attachment on the part
of the emigrants to the land of their nativity. How
beautifully was this attachment manifested during the
Franco-Prussian war in 1870-71!]

[Footnote 260-4: Compare _Fr. List_, in the D.
Vierteljahrsschrift, 1842, No. IV. _Dieterici_, über Aus-
und Einwanderungen, 1847, 18.]

[Footnote 260-5: No Mosquito-coast!]

[Footnote 260-6: How tenaciously have the Germans held to
their nationality in Transylvania and the Baltic provinces,
and how rapidly they lost it in Pennsylvania!]

[Footnote 260-7: On emigration to Brazil, see _v. Tschudi's_
report of Oct. 6 to the Swiss parliament, 1860.]

[Footnote 260-8: Think only of the project of the Belgian
East Indian Company, which Austria could not carry out at
the beginning of the preceding century. Proposition by
_Fröbel_ (loc. cit., 87 ff.) that England and Prussia should
together found a German colony in the valley of the La
Plata, to which _Wappäus_ rightly objects, that there are
few places there in which peasant emigrants would like to
acquire land. (Mittel- und Südamerika, 1866, 1027.)]

[Footnote 260-9: Compare _Wappäus_, Deutsche Auswanderung
und Kolonisation, 1846.]